General has inspected my proofs, and I am to appear before the Committee
for Privileges next week. In a few weeks at the outside, allowing for the
worst of law's delays, I shall be Lord Turrald."

Robert Turold's whole bearing was transfigured as he made this
announcement. His sound eye gleamed, his shrunken form seemed to expand
and fill, and his harsh sallow features took on an expression which was
almost ecstatic. It was his great moment, the moment for which he had
lived for twenty years, and it compensated him for all his worry, delayed
expectation, fruitless labour, and the bitter taste of the waters of
despair.

"I shall be Turrald of Great Missenden," he said, and again the expression
of his face showed what the words meant to him.

"Bob! So you've actually succeeded after all!" Mrs. Pendleton stepped
quickly across to her brother as he sat regarding his audience from behind
his pile of documents. It was like a sister, at that moment, to slip back
to the juvenile name and kiss his elderly face with tears in her eyes.
Robert Turold received the caress unmoved, and she went back to the sofa.

"Lord Turrald! It sounds well," murmured her husband, whose ideas were
sufficiently democratic to give him a sneaking admiration for a title. He
gazed at his brother-in-law with a new respect, discerning unsuspected
indications of noble blood in his grim visage.

"How do you account for the two forms of spelling your family name?"
observed Dr. Ravenshaw. "The House of Lords will require proof on that
point, will they not?"